Buckingham Fountain

ARTICLES ABOUT BUCKINGHAM FOUNTAIN BY DATE - PAGE 5

Time's running out if you want to own a piece of Chicago. The Great Chicago Fire Sale on eBay ends Thursday, and it's been a huge fundraising success for the city's cultural programs. Some of the items sold so far: - A dinner for 10 with TV journalist Bill Kurtis--plus a mini-documentary custom made by Kurtis--went for $18,600. - One bidder paid $7,600 to dye the Chicago River green for St. Patrick's Day. - A 1960s Playboy bunny costume that had the highest minimum bid ($6,000)

By Daniel Kraus. Daniel Kraus is a metromix special contributor | September 13, 2004

When I heard about the Chicago Segway Tour--a new lakefront sightseeing excursion conducted entirely aboard those futuristic Segway scooters--I was instantly intrigued. Like so many others, I've been curious about the Segway since its debut in 2001 amid heaps of hype usually reserved for "Star Wars" prequels. For months before its release, it was mysteriously referred to only as "It." Some guessed "It" would be a perpetual-motion machine. Others guessed "It" would be a personal hovercraft.

One of the estimated 80,000 turkey legs sold at the Taste of Chicago ended up in the jaws of Mattie the basset hound Monday morning. And judging from the vigor with which she gnawed on the bone, she enjoyed it as much as her owner enjoyed the 10-day party that ended the night before. "I liked everything," said Sheila Fader of St. Louis, who was walking Mattie a few steps off Columbus Drive where crews were power washing the street. Fader drove to Chicago Friday night with her son Michael and Mattie and spent Saturday at the Taste.

Lifelong Chicagoans should remember that the traditional time for Buckingham Fountain to start its gushing light shows used to be May, but that the Chicago Park District has started the water flowing in April in recent years. So why isn't the memorial to Clarence Buckingham, which first wowed city residents in 1927 and is modeled after a fountain at the Palace of Versailles, turned on yet? Almost a decade after the fountain's 1995 renovation, the Park District is engaged in a "light replacement project, which means the lights are going to be brighter, as well as more beautiful," said Julian Green, a spokesman for the district.

Only in Chicago would a dispute between pizza parlors escalate into something as fierce as the Cubs versus Sox cross-town classic. An inadvertent misprint on the map that positions all the different Taste of Chicago restaurant vendors touched off a battle royale between two well-known pizza purveyors. The subject: Who would be the rightful occupant of Booth 12, prime real estate during the annual face-stuffing festival because of its proximity to the Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park and heavy foot traffic.

Jo Hormuth's contribution to "Suite Home Chicago" makes one wish art were edible. That's because her work was a piece of cake. The effort required was anything but that. Hormuth and collaborator Micki LeMieux spent nearly three weeks creating "Sweet Suite," now on the south side of Grant Park's Buckingham Fountain (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). The concept was partly born out of the location, the idea of having cake in the park -- for Hormuth, it even brought to mind the song "MacArthur Park."

Long After Twilight Ends, the 13th annual L.A.T.E. ride begins at Buckingham Fountain. Bicyclists will meet at midnight Saturday at the fountain, 500 S. Lake Shore Drive, for a recreational ride through the city, with Chicago police directing traffic out of riders' way. Riders take off at 1:30 a.m., pedaling northwest along various streets to Pulaski Road and Montrose Avenue, then east to Montrose Avenue Beach, then south along the lakefront...

With about two weeks before Taste of Chicago, local restaurateurs are making final orders for tens of thousands of hotdog buns, countless eggs and several thousand pounds of ribs. The Mayor's Office of Special Events held a kickoff lunch at Buckingham Fountain on Wednesday, where sponsors feasted on food from 15 of the 64 restaurants participating this year. The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. June 29 to July 7 and concludes at 8 p.m. July 8. Paul Michaels, co-owner of Gold Coast Dogs, said he expects to sell 30,000 to 40,000 hotdogs during the company's ninth appearance.

More than two weeks after spring officially arrived, near-record temperatures Saturday signaled that winter may finally be over. Grateful Chicagoans flocked to the lakeshore and parks, some surprised and sweating in long-sleeved shirts. "It's the death of cabin fever," said John Jones, 43, a lawyer who had an afternoon picnic with his wife and a friend near the camels at Lincoln Park Zoo. By midday, temperatures soared into the low 80s as gusty winds whipped clouds across the region.

I am the new owner of Ben Fountain, formally known to Chicagoans as the historic Buckingham Fountain. Having only moved to Chicago in the last year and a half, I was not made aware of the policy that public land could be claimed as one's own by the placing of certain objects, such as lawn chairs, tables, etc., onto the desired public grounds. My thanks to the recent December snowstorms for clarifying this opportunity. Certainly the claiming of portions of Chicago streets by private car owners has resulted in my inability to find on-street parking in my neighborhood.